Any scale drawings/info on logging flumes and attendent cabins available? I want to add a flume to my HO layout scenery.
I live about 35 miles from Lake Tahoe in Nevada. Timber harvesting was a big deal in this area during the late 1800's because much of the lumber was to support mining ops on the Comstock. You may want to try looking into the Tahoe fluming operations into Carson City that the Virginia and Truckee served. I have several books on the V&T and logging in the area. I do think that same history can be found online.
That's about the best I can offer.
Mark H
Modeling in HO...Reading and Conrail together in an alternate history.
I believe the size of flumes and connected sluice ponds, depended on how big the logs were that were to travel down them. So determine the size of the trees in your forest and go from there.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
Bacically a logging flume is a wooden trough which is usually V shapped although some had flat bottoms mounted on cribbing or a trestle.
A Google image search for logging flume will find a number of sites with photos that will enable you to design a reasonable model.
I haven't found any photos, but there once was a flume (for rough cut lumber) from a mill at Challenge California to Honcut California that consisted of a series of wooden troughs, open ditches an d had two tunnels through intervening ridges.
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
I doubt that any two logging flumes were built to the same dimensions. I would also be willing to wager that many, if not most, were built without any formal plan - just 'seat of the pants' engineering based on previous experience and the size of available materials.
One thing the early flume builders tried to avoid was joints, especially long joints between parallel boards. More than one flume was 'sized' by the width of the available wood.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - where logs moved on disconnects, not in flumes)
I Googled "log flumes" but half the pictures are passenger operations!!
charlie
Try "logging flumes"
Here's a link:
www.idahoforests.org/img/pdf/flumesflumingnidaho.pdf
That's Idaho. I suspect many flumes were built very similarly...in a particular area. Custom, the advanatges in a set location, terrain, etc probably dictate what people use.
One heck of a flume:
http://www.pbase.com/jakobe/abandoned_log_flume
And I have no idea why the first link isn't cliackable and the second is. I'd like to know though, as that's the first one since the change.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
I don't see scale drawings, but there are a number of good photos of log flumes that would allow accurate construction in the following book:
Matches, Flumes, and Rails: The Diamond Match Co. in the High Sierra
by Kent Stephens. Trans-Anglo Books, 1977
Bill
Here's a bit of info on the Broughton log flume near the SP&S:
http://broughtonlogflume.blogspot.com/
Ed
I just put a logging flume in on my HO layout. Probably not what you had in mind but it was fun to build and looks good. The industry is a large papermill. The flume runs parallel to the pulpwood unloading tracks. Logs are drug from the cars into the flume. the flumes then simulate taking the logs from the woodyard to the de-barking drums. My flume is about 8 feet long. I built it using cork roadbed for the sides. The flume itself is about 2 inches wide (far too short to be prototypical but hey, all the space I had). I then filled the "flume" with simulated logs and then added the "water". Turned out nice. The barking drums were kitbashed from pvc pipe and various outher structural parts.
Thank you all who have provided sources and references to logging flumes.
The general concinsous is right, there doesn't seem to be a specific design, style or size to use as a prototype. So, using all the info and pictures suggested I drew up my own generic plan. Attached are pictures of my work in progress and the plan I followed. Since I'm modeling the 50/60 time frame an operating flume didn't seem prototipical so I was going to represent an abandoned flume. Then my wife had the great idea of "restoring" a section and developing it into a musem. Now I can display my Shay, have a flume and tender house and various pieces of logging equipment.
You may find this interesting:
http://www.mendorailhistory.org/1_logging/flumes.htm
62 miles is quite a flume!
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